Butterfly's

Lately wherever I go there seem to be a lot of butterflies. Both flying ones and ones coming up in conversation. When I attended the Retreat that I mentioned in my previous blog, I met a very lovely spiritual couple who both really seem to resonate with the symbol of the butterfly, who in fact both wore one around their necks. The gentleman who is an intuitive, picked up on my brother, Cory's presence whom as you will read below, was connected to butterflies. Shortly after the retreat I 'met' an injured very large butterfly on my walk one morning. I had never seen one like it before as it was not a monarch but quite large and had blue and yellow wings. The next day I went to the meditation group I attend at the Willow Branches on Wednesday nights and butterflies were part of the meditation and conversation. The following day I was driving and one flew right at my window and got lodged on to my wiper blades. I pulled over and gently removed it and put it on the side of the road. It was still alive but its one wing was broken beyond repair. Since then I thankfully haven't seen anymore injured butterflies but have continued to notice many wherever I go. My brother used to draw butterflies in his art work. Mostly black and white butterflies. He was a very talented young man. Butterflies represent transformation.. or the rebirth after the transition from caterpillar to cocoon to butterfly. Cory made his 'transition' from this earth in 1992. Shortly after his passing my mom kept noticing a black and white butterfly (which of course are rare to see) flying close to his car. (Here is a picture of a black and White butterfly if you would like to see one) http://travel.webshots.com/photo/1041132861034463868qieflF Since butterflies hold such significance for me and my family I wanted to have a butterfly as my logo for Soul Solutions. I imagined that I would eventually have someone design one for me at some point. In the meantime I was busy with other aspects of my business and therefore was temporarily using a clip art piece from MS Office. I was speaking with a friend of mine who is a graphic designer (and also my yoga teacher... talented woman) about getting my brochures and cards updated and explained the significance of the butterfly to her. She had this amazing idea to scan Cory's artwork and use his butterflies for for the logo! I was so excited and talked it over with my family who thought it was a great idea. The results were so wonderful. Not only did she put a butterfly in the logo, but also, on my brochure she used another one of Cory's butterfly's to look like it was flying up the page. The colours are my choice. I love purples and greens and see them as healing colours. Colours of spiritual transformation and Mother Earth. Transition, transformation, rebirth. Each of these transition events in our lives give us opportunities to grow, to learn and to become more of who we can be. We are good enough as we are but we always have room to grow. You don't 'fault' a 5Th grader for not being yet in the 8Th grade. We are all where we are meant to be, doing the best we can with what we have at this moment. Life has a way of giving us what we need at different times in our lives to make our transformation to the next 'level' to the next place of our beingness. We can resist this 'birthing process', and we may need to do this for awhile until we learn that what we resists persists. This process, which as any Mother who has given birth knows, is not a painless one. I remember when I had my first child and I was young and afraid and how painful birthing from that place was. So painful I was physically ill. When I was giving Birth to my next son 11.5 years later I remember some fear rising and my voice rising with it (trying to run away from it). At that point the wonderful midwives told me to not run away from my pain, but to go into it and feel it and move with it. What a difference!! I felt powerful, I felt connected to the earth and to the amazing process of birth. The pain diminished and this beautiful wonderful and amazing child was birthed and the love I felt was so overwhelming in that moment that I can still recall it. We fight so hard that which we fear, but if we can learn to trust the universe, trust the process and know that it is all part of the greater plan for becoming all that we can be we will find that things will flow, and will come together in a way that we could have never imagined. The love, the joy the peace are all there waiting patiently for us to let go of our fear. And we will come out the other side, renewed, stronger, more certain of who we are and where we are going.